PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The living conditions of three Philadelphia dogs and several rabbits has sparked community outrage since the summer of 2016 has now led to the animals disappearing early Monday.

Two large dogs, a puppy, and several rabbits were reported stolen from a property on the 2900 block of Sandyford Avenue after a weekend of protests were conducted on behalf of the animal’s welfare.

Neighbors told Eyewitness News that the dogs in particular spent their lives confined to the home’s small front porch area, and only after being reprimanded by officials did their owner construct a wooden makeshift shelter.

“You feel bad for them, seeing the animals out here in the cold and all,” said one man who often drives by the home.

Concerned passersby said that they often checked in on the animals, providing them food and water.

Hundreds have spoken out against the owner online, commenting on videos that showed the dogs struggling to find shade during the summer and most recently, protection from the snow on Saturday.

“I literally drove by and saw the dogs panting in 90 degree weather,” said concerned resident Alyssa Hower of her first encounter with the dogs. “They were literally drinking their own pee just trying to survive.”

Hower and dozens of others stop by the home frequently to check in on the animals. On one of those occasions they filmed an interaction with the owner.

“My dogs don’t like the inside!” the apparent property owner shouted in a video submitted to Eyewitness News. When people are heard demanded him to bring his animals indoors the man responds, “They are my dogs. Not yours.”

Eyewitness News arrived to the property Monday evening, and found that only one rabbit remained. The PSPCA confirmed that the other animals were reported stolen and that they will continue their investigation.

An anonymous, non-law enforcement source told reporter Alexandria Hoff that the animals are now “safe”.

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) — Starting next April, you won’t need to sign anything to make a purchase with an American Express card.

American Express announced the change Monday, saying it aims to create a more consistent and faster checkout experience.

“The payments landscape has evolved to the point where we can now eliminate this pain point for our merchants,” said Jaromir Divilek, an executive vice president for Amex. “Our fraud capabilities have advanced so that signatures are no longer necessary to fight fraud.”

American Express already stopped requiring U.S. merchants to collect signatures on purchases of less than $50. And there were different threshold amounts in other countries. In some regions outside the United States the use of signatures are already less common, according to the company.

“Having to sign a receipt can be a hassle for customers, and is not necessary to prevent fraud at the point of sale,” said Mike Cook, an assistant vice president at Walmart in a quote provided by American Express. He said the nation’s largest retailer is pleased by the change, “which will promote a more seamless shopping and checkout experience” for customers.

Even if it takes only a few seconds for a customer to leave a signature, the requirement to get and keep a record of that signature is costly for merchants, said Cherian Abraham, a digital payment executive with Experian. And speeding up the check out process by even just a few seconds can save money and reduce friction with the customer, he said.

“For a merchant like Walmart, every additional second at the point of sale translates into several millions in terms of costs,” he said.

The industry has been moving away from signatures for some time. Modern credit cards have a computer chip that provides additional fraud prevention. And customers are already used to buying things online, and on their smartphones, without a signature.

American Express is the first card provider to make this change across the board, worldwide. But MasterCard announced in October that it was dropping the requirement for purchases in the United States and Canada, and Discover announced the same change last week for purchases in those countries as well as Mexico and the Caribbean. As with Amex, those policies will change in April.

Six people are currently on board the space station — three NASA astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts and one Italian astronaut.

Budweiser’s plan to brew space beer may sound like a gimmick. Indeed, the funding for the project is coming out of Budweiser’s marketing budget, according to Ricardo Marques, the company’s vice president of marketing. He declined to say how much the experiment cost.

He says space travel “is becoming a trending hot topic,” and he didn’t shy away from conceding that’s part of what draws marketers in. But, he added, “there’s a lot of scientific horsepower behind this experiment.”

Mike Roberts is the deputy chief scientist at CASIS, which manages the space station’s U.S. research lab. His team helps vet which cargo is worthy of making the risky and expensive trek to space.

He told CNNMoney in an interview last week that the barley experiment will add to a series of projects the space station has hosted — all aimed at learning more about crops and how to better grow them back here on Earth.

The barley seeds slated to fly on Tuesday will stay on the space station for about one month before they are sent home to be analyzed. The goal is to study how they react to the micro-gravity environment in space.

That will give scientists a better understanding of barley’s plant biology — lending some potentially valuable information about growing healthy crops on Earth, Roberts said. It’ll mark the first time barley seeds have been the focus of a space station experiment.

Budweiser says this will be the first of many excursions it plans to back. And, eventually, the newly gleaned information could inform how the company will make brewskis for Mars.

The company pledged to make “the first beer on Mars” earlier this year at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

Marques, the marketing executive, says the company wants to be known for “being bold, pushing the boundaries.”

“We’re looking to simply learn more, explore our agenda. It’s great that we can connect with the passion of our drinker,” he said before adding, “And we’ve been watching Star Trek for years.”

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) — A group of women who have publicly accused President Donald Trump of sexual harassment and assault detailed their accounts of being groped, fondled and forcibly kissed by the businessman-turned-politician at a news conference on Monday.

“This was serial misconduct and perversion on the part of Mr. Trump. Unfortunately, this behavior isn’t rare in our society, and people of all backgrounds can be victims. The only reason I am here today is that this offender is now the President of our country,” said Rachel Crooks, a former Bayrock Group receptionist who accused Trump of kissing her on the mouth without her consent in 2005.

Samantha Holvey, the former Miss North Carolina 2006 who has accused Trump of inspecting beauty pageant contestants, and Jessica Leeds, who has accused the President of grabbing her chest and attempting to move his hand up her skirt on a flight, also sat with Crooks at Monday’s event.

The firsthand accounts come as a public conversation on sexual assault and harassment — spurred by a series of accusations against high-profile figures in politics, Hollywood and journalism — rages throughout the United States. Brave New Films, a production company that realized a film on the women who have accused Trump of sexual assault, hosted the event.

At least 15 women have come forward with a wide range of accusations against Trump, ranging from sexual harassment and sexual assault to lewd behavior around women. Of the women, 13 say Trump attacked them directly and two others say they witnessed behavior that made them uncomfortable. All the alleged incidents took place prior to his assuming the presidency.

On Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that the allegations took place “long before he was elected president” and that Trump has “addressed these accusations directly and denied all of these allegations.”

Sanders also claimed that “eyewitnesses” have backed up Trump’s denials.

“The President has denied any of these allegations, as have eyewitnesses,” Sanders said. “Several reports have shown those eyewitnesses also back up the President’s claim in this process and again, the American people knew this and voted for the President and we feel like we are ready to move forward in that process.”

Asked by CNN to detail these eyewitness accounts, a White House official noted two reports that were made public during the 2016 campaign, one from The New York Post and another from The New York Daily News.

The first eyewitness was Anthony Gilberthorpe, who the Trump campaign made available to the Post during the 2016 contest to rebut Leeds’ claim that Trump groped her on a flight. Gilberthorpe claimed to be on the same flight and has been known in British media for making claims about the sexual conduct of politicians.

The second eyewitness is Katie Blair, the Miss Teen USA 2006 who told TMZ that she never saw Trump come backstage during a beauty contest.

“As far as the rumors surrounding him coming backstage and things like that, dressing rooms — absolutely not,” she told TMZ, but Blair was not present at the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant, where Trump was accused of walking in.

Trump bragged on the Howard Stern show in 2005 about going backstage during beauty pageants.

“Before a show, I’ll go backstage and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it,” he said. “You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good.”

The White House failed to provide other examples of eyewitnesses corroborating the President’s denials.

In addition to the woman at the press conference on Monday, Trump’s accusers include Temple Taggart, the former Miss Utah USA who accused Trump of kissing her on the lips in 1997; Mindy McGillivray, who accused Trump of grabbing her butt at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in 2003 and Natasha Stoynoff, who accused Trump of “forcing his tongue” down her throat during a photo shoot at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.

Crooks called on Congress to “put aside party affiliations and investigate Trump’s history of sexual misconduct.”

“In an objective setting, without question, a person with this record would have entered the graveyard of political aspirations, never to return,” she said. “Yet here we are with that man as President.”

Leeds added that while some areas of society are “being held accountable for unwanted behavior … we are not holding our President accountable for what he is and who he is.”

Trump has personally vehemently denied the accusations.

“The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over,” Trump said months before the 2016 election in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Trump, however, has never filed a lawsuit against the accusers.

Sanders said earlier this year that the White House’s position is that all the women are lying.

“Yeah, we have been clear on that from the beginning and the President has spoken on it,” Sanders said in October.

Trump opened the floodgates of accusations against him during the 2016 campaign when he downplayed the release of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video that showed him saying he was able to “grab them by the p**sy” because he was famous.

Trump downplayed his remarks as nothing more than “locker room talk” at the second presidential debate and said he never kissed or groped women without consent.

But not all those close to the President have been so dismissive.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Sunday that women who accuse a man of inappropriate sexual behavior — including Trump — “should be heard.”

“Well, I mean, you know, the same thing, is women who accuse anyone should be heard,” Haley said when asked specifically about Trump’s accusers. “They should be heard and they should be dealt with. And I think we heard from them prior to the election. And I think any woman who has felt violated or felt mistreated in any way, they have every right to speak up.”

The renewed focus on Trump’s accusers comes as Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore fights to win a reliably Republican seat, despite accusations he pursued relationships with teenagers, including molesting a 14-year-old and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old when he was in his 30s. Moore has denied all the allegations.

Trump has stood by Moore despite the accusations and has raised questions about the women who have leveled the charges. Trump traveled to Florida — just miles from the Alabama border — to rally support for the Senate candidate and has repeatedly tweeted about the need to back Moore and keep his Democratic opponent Doug Jones out of the Senate.

Two Democratic senators — Cory Booker of New Jersey and Jeff Merkley of Oregon — called for Trump to resign over the multiple accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against him.

The calls come days after Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, announced his intention to resign over accusations of sexual assault.

“I just watched Sen. Al Franken do the honorable thing and resign from his office,” Booker said. “My question is, why isn’t Donald Trump doing the same thing — who has more serious allegations against him, with more women who have come forward. The fact pattern on him is far more damning than the fact pattern on Al Franken.”

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (CBS) – Police in Chester County have arrested two people accused of stealing holiday gifts and tips that residents left for trash collectors.

On Dec. 11 Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police say they responded to a call about a man searching trash cans in the 1200 block of Upton Circle.

When police arrived near the scene they say they found a Ford Explorer parked illegally with a woman in the front passenger seat. Shortly after, police say the man accused of searching trash cans approached the Explorer.

Authorities say Joshua Michael Swavely, 28, of Narvon and Kimberly A. Verdi, 30, of Essington stole gifts meant for trash collectors in the area of MacKenzie Drive. No thefts were committed on Upton Circle.

Police have charged them with theft by unlawful taking or disposition, receiving stolen property, conspiracy, loitering and prowling at night. The pair were released on a summons.

Credit: WESTTOWN-EAST GOSHEN REGIONAL POLICE DEPARTMENT

Police would like to remind residents that the safest way to tip trash collectors or provide them with holiday gifts is to either hand deliver the gift directly to the team or contact the proper trash hauler for the jurisdiction.

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — This is a big week for the Internet: the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday is expected to repeal net neutrality rules put in place during the Obama administration.

Tuesday brings an online protest effort designed to pressure Congress to take action to preserve the regulations.

There is shock value in the “Break the Internet” campaign: Reddit, for instance, is turning red and warning “you’ve exceeded your allotted bandwidth.”

But organizers say it’s really about ordinary people raising their voices.

“Internet users can get involved by changing their Facebook relationship status to say they’re ‘married to net neutrality,’” says Evan Greer, campaign director at Fight For The Future. “You can change your LinkedIn to say you have a new job defending net neutrality at battleforthenet.com.”

“This is about whether all of us have a voice,” Greer says. “And so all of us need to use the Internet to get our voices out now before it’s too late.”

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai argues net neutrality has “depressed investment and deterred innovation.” His fellow Republicans, who are in the majority on the commission, are all but certain to vote to shred the rules in effect since 2015.

At BreakTheInternetProtest.org, there are images to upload to the web and social media warning the site has been blocked or your browsing has been slowed — what supporters contend could happen when the FCC moves to repeal net neutrality.

“Polling consistently shows voters across political spectrum overwhelmingly agree: we don’t want cable companies controlling what websites we can visit, what apps we can use and where we get our information and news from,” Greer says.

Protest organizers are hoping people will turn their anger into action by calling their legislators.

“Congress is supposed to provide oversight authority for the FCC,” Greer says. “This agency has clearly gone off the rails. They’re not working for the public, they’re working for Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. Congress needs to do their job and put pressure on them to cancel this outrageous vote.”

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — After the season’s first snowfall this weekend, more wintry weather is on the way with a string of snow chances this week.

The first chance at a few flakes materializes late day Tuesday as an arctic cold front clears the Delaware Valley. The first half of our Tuesday will feature scattered rain showers, but as much colder air blasts in during the afternoon, any lingering moisture could help generate a few snow showers, mainly after 5pm. Little to no accumulation is expected.

Arctic air entrenched and the combination of two more fast-moving disturbances will yield additional snow chances on Thursday and again on Friday.

Measurable snow is possible both days, yet current model data does not suggest significant accumulation, but be sure to stay tuned to the evolving forecast.